Esk Tales {TWWM-ARPG Writings Collection}

Recess {Majanthi #6- New Tales}

Recess

Prompt 6- New Tales
{Majanthi}

.:+:.

The land sloped ever downward, a slow, tedious decline that brought her further into the clutches of the earth without it seeming so. Miles of trekking through scorched sand and she'd not noticed the upward creeping of the sheer canyon walls, baked and brittle rock growing increasingly taller and the strip of blue sky above increasingly more miniscule- until the blue was rarer and rarer to see, and the tops of the cliffs became near impossible to make out. She'd walked all the way until the sky was gone and the canyon walls had pressed in, trapping and consuming her as the single downward track led her further into the grips of shadow and stone... Down, down into a recess of the earth where so many dark and haunted things lay waiting, writhing.

The Dunemother had been drawn here by a promise of water, streams and rivers of the precious liquid feeding a pool in a place so different from here. The oasis she'd come from was light and full of such peace and calm- the water somehow filtered and cleansed on every level physical and spiritual before it trickled into the basin of the land. But from where did the water come?

It was here, though she could not see the water now and she only had the faintest inkling of it far, far below in some dark and unreachable place. Down below inside the earth and the baked sand layering the canyon's bottom that she walked over, trapped unseen as it made its slow and arduous journey through the bedrock and through the earth's crust toward that final destination in light and peace. Where the water went down and then eventually back up, stripping itself of what awful memories and power she could feel under her feet- lingering, haunted things that this canyon seemed to draw in like moths to a flame.

There was no life here, the sand was parched and had been for what seemed eons, the rocks barren of any plants that could usually cling to survival in the harsh climate. Bones sat scattered in nooks and half-buried in the sand, stark white against the muddy red hues after years of sun-bleaching. Scattered trinkets and lost things were littered about, accumulated here where they didn't belong but somehow here they were nonetheless. In close corners and crevices dug into the bottom of the stone where creatures might hide and wait, they were filled with nothing but dust and sand and the odd thing so out of place, before they dipped away quickly into sheer shadow. And in every nook and cranny, crack and fissure, every alcove and slot dug down into the rock and earth and kept going- all of it choked up with and swimming with more than just dirt and dark. Bad dreams and thoughts hung there, collecting like the trinkets and festering in those unseen places reaching down into the land.... In a way it almost seemed these things had been lured here with the promise of water as Majanthi had, as if the deep streams and trickles underneath served as some unnatural magnet for all things malignant, tortured, and lost.

Majanthi's trek came to a sudden stop, the canyon walls rumbling with a faroff and sudden wailing on the air, long and mournful- but agitated too.

There was something here, something not quite alive in the normal sense, but certainly something. Something that did its best to remain unseen by the Wanderer, but also made sure that she knew it was there, and she was invading in this place where it wanted none to tread.

Majanthi paused a moment, the wailing and cries floating overhead and bouncing off the rock, disjointed, tortured, and just as lost as whatever soul it was born from. The Wanderer remained paused but a moment more, before her trek began again and she headed slowly deeper down that long decline. Down toward what eventual end she knew there must be to this lonely winding track, and down all the way into this fissure of land and earth that served a lure for the broken things, and all at once a filter too.

The waters buried underneath were tumultuous and tainted, poisoned by the negative energies and disharmony spilling down the canyon without end. Waters that swept up that taint and filth and carried it all down and away on a long journey much like the trek the Wanderer took. In each turn and tumble through bedrock and stone in the depths the water stripped itself of the poison, while the earth around the Wanderer remained still haunted and untouched. The surface was too far for the strange cleansing of the water in the depths to reach.... But perhaps the surface was not meant to be touched.

This place served a magnet and a winding maze for all things unhappy, tortured, and angry- the walls of the canyon both a prison and a funnel down into the recesses of the earth. A guide for that downward trek toward the strange filtering of water buried far beneath, where all things eventually trickled to and could be appeased.

Majanthi hummed faintly to herself as she continued onward, pale eyes twinkling faintly in the enclosing dim. She cast a glance toward the last of that tiny sliver of blue sky far overhead, before it disappeared and the walls of the canyon closed in on her entirely.

Perhaps that was the truth of it; a haunted and ill at ease scar in the land that served a recess for all that bad to trickle in and collect like rainwater in a crater. All of that collecting here in this stopgap between a wound that festered, and a chance at the sickness being washed away and soothed slowly bit by bit until it finally healed at the very end of this long, long walk.

It was a curious thing, and the Wanderer found herself wondering on how long a walk and trickle downward there would need to be to soothe what turmoil and pain she heard in those far off wails still bouncing off the rock.

Majanthi cast a small glance backward as she walked, the disjointed moans and calls still echoing strangely as they kept on, and almost seemed to stalk her heels as she kept moving inward.

.... a long, long time I think.